


so magical all you can keep inside

by throughadoor



Category: The Bright Sessions (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 06:25:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6893698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughadoor/pseuds/throughadoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb and Adam return to the scene of the crime. Feelings are felt, the utility of blood brotherhood as a metaphor is debated and nobody does any Chemistry homework.</p>
            </blockquote>





	so magical all you can keep inside

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, it's a post-episode 15 story. I realize I'm kind of re-inventing the wheel here, but what can you do, the heart wants what it wants. Title is Patrick Wolf.

Adam was already sitting on the front porch when Caleb's mom pulled the car into the driveway, the hood of his sweatshirt drawn up over his head with earbud cords snaking out on either side. Even though Caleb could just imagine how much of an idiot he looked like, he was sliding out of the passenger seat before his mom even turned off the car. Adam glanced up, pulling out his earbuds and stuffing them into the pocket of his hoodie. Before he even fully climbed out of the car, Caleb could already feel Adam's feelings settling over him. He'd thought before -- and this one was too pathetic even to tell Dr. Bright -- that it was kind of like having a cat curl up in your lap. 

The strongest of Adam's feelings was the now-familiar stomach butterflies. Caleb really needed a more technical term for that one, but he didn't care what Dr. Bright said, just _thinking_ the word 'lust' made him feel like his face was about to catch on fire. So, the butterflies were there, but today they felt different. More substantial, maybe, and heavier somehow. Heavy butterflies. He should tell Adam about that one, he'd probably say it sounded like a crappy name for a metal band.

Adam cocked his head to the side, and Caleb realized he'd just been standing there, like an idiot, and-- "W-what were you listening to?" Caleb eventually managed to say. 

"Oh, um, that guy I was telling you about last week, the one--"

"Hi Adam!" Caleb's mom called out as she circled around the car in the driveway. "Do you boys want a snack or anything?"

"No!" Caleb said, with what he was going to pretend didn't sound like a yelp. "That's fine, we're fine, no snack." He could feel slow realization from his mom, bright orange and peeling back like an orange peel. From Adam, he felt a murky blue rainwater puddle of embarrassed amusement. Between them, Caleb felt bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball. "We're just gonna go for a walk," Caleb said finally.

"Well, alright," Caleb's mom said, apparently bothering to act totally casual for Adam's benefit because she had to know she wasn't fooling Caleb. "You two have a nice walk then."

Caleb's mom moved past them to let herself into the house, and then they were alone, Adam still sitting on the porch and Caleb still standing in front of him at the edge of the driveway. 

"Don't worry, it's cool," Caleb said, nodding his head in the direction of where his mom had disappeared behind the front door. "She knows about, you know--" he trailed off, shrugging sheepishly.

"About, you mean," Adam paused, and then kind of waved his hand back and forth at the space between the two of them. 

"No, not that!" Caleb said. "She knows about my thing. Well, to be completely honest, she might know about, uh," Caleb paused awkwardly, and then settled for copying Adam's hand-waving gesture. "I had to tell her that I wanted to tell you, about my thing," he said. "And she was all, 'I know Adam is really important to you,' so I dunno. She might have, like, figured it out?"

"Huh. Wow. That is _not_ how it's like with my parents. As far as they're concerned, it's still 1993."

"What do you mean?"

"Hey, I haven't been helping you study for the government final for my health here," Adam said, raising his eyebrows. "You know, Don't Ask, Don't Tell?"

"Oh," Caleb said, nodding to himself. "Okay. Yeah. That makes sense."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, since we started talking about my mom, I could feel that you were kinda sad, which was weird. Because I can feel that you're really happy too, right now, it's just that there's, like, a sad blanket pulled over all your other feelings. But that's how you, uh, that's how you usually feel when you think about your parents, so--"

"Okay, yeah," Adam said, though if he hadn't interrupted Caleb's rambling, the strong sour feeling that Caleb was getting from Adam might have done the job eventually. "I get the picture," Adam said. "So, let's just … not talk about my parents. Anyway, I thought we were gonna go for a walk.

"Yeah, no, look, I'm sorry," Caleb said, his eyes falling to the ground with embarrassment. "Shit, I'm already fucking everything up."

"Stop it, no you aren't," Adam said, smoothing his palms over his kneecaps. "I just -- I don't want to talk about my parents right now because, well, it's weird. And, because I am really happy. I'm really, really fucking happy.

"Well, good," Caleb said with a slight huff. "Me too." He held out a hand in invitation, and Adam took it and pulled himself up from the porch.

When Caleb first started seeing her, Dr. Bright had said that some people's mental abilities were enhanced by touch, but based on her observations, Caleb didn't seem to be one of them. Well, what she'd actually said was, 'enhanced by tactile sensation' and Caleb had said, 'You mean like Star Trek?' and Dr. Bright had sighed and done that thing where she tried to look patient even though Caleb could completely feel her getting exasperated and said, 'Yes, I suppose it's a little like Star Trek.'

When Adam's hand slipped into his, Caleb's first thought was that he might have to tell Dr. Bright she needed to reevaluate his ability. Because the press of his clammy palm against Adam's seemed to multiply the heavy butterfly feeling by about a million. But then, when they dropped hands and started to walk toward the park, the hyperactive heavy butterflies didn't go anywhere. 

 

 

It was a little colder than it had been earlier in the weekend and getting close to dinner time, so the park was basically empty. They walked over to a bench that was by the little pond where Caleb used to try and teach his sister to skip rocks. They both sat down, not exactly on opposite sides of the bench or anything, but not exactly in each other's laps either. Caleb slung one arm across the back of the bench and tried not to feel like the most awkward person ever born.

"So what do we do now?" Caleb blurted out.

"I don't know," Adam said, wincing a little bit. "It's not like I've ever, you know, had a boyfriend before or anything."

"Really?" Caleb said, surprised. "But I thought you'd known for a while that you were, um."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I've known I was gay since … I can't even remember how long. But you know how it was, before I started hanging out with you. I didn't even have any friends at that school. My dating opportunities were not exactly plentiful."

"So you don't have a clue what you're doing either."

Adam snorted. "I'm flattered if you think otherwise," he said, "but I basically don't ever have a clue what I'm doing, pretty much all the time."

"But, we can figure it out together?" Caleb said, wanting it to sound more confident than questioning but not having very much success.

"Yeah," Adam said. "That sounds like a plan."

Caleb turned to look at Adam, and found that Adam was already studying him, with the same expression on his face that he got when puzzling out a particularly complicated math problem.

"I'm gonna try something, okay?" Adam said. And then Adam leaned in and kissed him, quickly enough that the kiss itself was already over before Caleb fully felt the over-carbonated soda sensation of Adam's nervousness. 

"So," Adam said, "What do my feelings feel like right now?"

"Well, um, good, obviously," said Caleb, knowing he sounded like a bumbling moron. "But it's more than that. It's like--" 

"Like what?"

Caleb thought for a moment. Trying to figure out ways to talk about his ability was really giving him a workout in the metaphor department. Hopefully it would have a positive effect on his SAT score. "When I was a kid," Caleb started to say, "like, maybe, first or second grade, I was friends with this kid Ethan who lived next door. And, we're dumb little kids, so one day after school we decide we're going to become blood brothers." 

Caleb felt amusement coming from Adam, and when he looked over, Adam was barely fighting back a smirk. "What's so funny?" Caleb said.

"Nothing, nothing," Adam said, shaking his head and laughing. "Go on, tell me more about your idyllic sitcom family childhood." 

"Shut up," Caleb said fondly. "Anyway," he continued, "we stole Ethan's mom's pin cushion, and we took turns pricking ourselves with sewing pins. But before we could even put our fingers together, Ethan's mom found us."

"What happened?"

"Oh, she completely flipped out," Caleb said. He was laughing now, too, because it did sound a little bit like a dumb sitcom plot. "The one thing I really remember is that she sprayed our hands with this antiseptic stuff and that hurt way worse than stabbing my finger with a sewing pin."

"Not that this isn't a completely adorable story, but what does this have to do with, um…." Adam trailed. He eventually defaulted back to waving his hand between them, the distance much closer now than it had been when they'd been in front of Caleb's house. Caleb thought they were going to have to come up with a more technical term here, too. Except that there probably already was one, they were both just too chickenshit to use it.

Caleb bit his lip, and really hoped that Dr. Bright was going to be happy when she heard about all this _communicating_ he was doing. "It feels like what I thought it was gonna feel like to become blood brothers," he said. "There's, like, a part of my feelings that are in you now and a part of yours that are in me."

Adam nodded, looking thoughtful. "That sounds … kind of dirty."

"Oh, fuck off, I didn't mean--" Caleb stammered. "What I meant was--"

"Hey, c'mon, I was just kidding," Adam said. He reached over to curl his hand around Caleb's elbow while his softened feelings curled around Caleb like the ratty blue afghan he always wanted when he got sick. "Look," Adam said, "I know I make fun of you for being a knuckle-dragging jock sometimes. But, the truth is, not only can I not feel feelings the way you do, I apparently can't even talk about them very well."

This time, Caleb leaned in to kiss Adam. It still felt a little weird, but also really good, his good feelings reflected against Adam's good feelings like sunlight on the water, or some other corny metaphor that he'd probably be too embarrassed to ever say out loud.

Adam tipped his head forward for a second, so that his forehead was resting against Caleb's collarbone. When he leaned back, he said, "I should probably get home. I was trying to study for the Chemistry test all afternoon but I was, um, you know, a little distracted."

"Yeah, shit," Caleb said. "I haven't even started looking at my notes for that. We could study together, maybe?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "No offense, Caleb, but that's going to be totally distracting in a completely different way."

"Yeah, fair enough," Caleb said. They got up and started walking back to his house.

 

 

It had begun to get dark while they'd been sitting there, and above them a street lamp blinked on. Caleb looked back at the park one last time, and thought about how crazy it was that he'd chased the ducks here when he was a kid, and run off here to be alone when he still didn't understand why being around other people made him want to crawl out of his skin, and came here yesterday to get his heart stomped on and then came back today and kissed the same person who did the unintentioned heart-stomping. All of those different versions of himself, none of them had had any idea what would be different the next time they came back here. And the Caleb he was now was in the same boat. But he hoped that the next time he came back here, it was with Adam.

"So, you said before that you were at your therapist's office?" Adam said, "You never told me you had a therapist."

"Yeah, I know," Caleb said. "I guess I never brought it up because the main reason I see her is that she helps me with my thing, how to control it and stuff."

"Your 'thing,'" Adam said, making exaggerated finger quotes. "You've gotta stop calling it that."

"Whatever," Caleb said. "Saying 'my empathy,'" he mirrored Caleb's finger quotes, "sounds, like, kinda fucking girly."

Adam shook his head in mock concern. "C'mon, Caleb," he said. "There's nothing inherently girly about emotions and feelings. If you're going to be gay, you have to stop being so rigid about gender roles."

Caleb frowned. "Look, just--," he said, "I told you already. I don't really know if I'm gay."

Adam sighed. "You're right," he said. "Sorry. Here I am telling you not to be so binary with your thinking and I apparently have plenty of internalized hang-ups of my own over here, so--"

"Hey, hey, hey," Caleb said, bumping his shoulder against Adam's. "Calm down, alright? Don't get upset. It's not a big deal. We're just … figuring stuff out together, right?"

"Right," Adam said, returning Caleb's shoulder bump with one of his own. "So," he continued, "your therapist, she helps you with your --"

"--with my _empathy_ , yeah," Caleb said, rolling his eyes.

"Did she completely freak out when you told her what you could do?"

"No, thank god," Caleb said, briefly flashing back to a mortifying visit with his pediatrician when he first started getting in trouble for having outbursts at school. "Working with people like me is kind of her specialty, I guess," he said. "I have no idea how my mom found her, but she was prepared for me to be, like, how I am."

They were still a block away from Caleb's house, but Adam stopped dead in his tracks. "Wait," he said, "she has other patients like you?"

"Maybe not exactly like me?" Caleb said. "I don't really know. She won't ever talk about any of her other patients because of confidentiality or whatever, but when I first started seeing, her she told me that some people can have other kinds of mental abilities, and some people can do other kinds of stuff, I guess?"

Adam's eyes widened. "So, what you're telling me," he said, "is that your therapist has an entire caseload of patients with superpowers and you've never tried to find out anything about _any_ them?"

"To be completely honest," Caleb said sarcastically, "I've kind of had a lot on my mind lately."

"Well, sure," Adam said, and Caleb could feel bubbling excitement coming from him, like a science project volcano. "But that gives me an idea ...."


End file.
